out of kilter

Guns do not kill people … People kill people. Banning guns, or restricting legitimate gun ownership IS NOT the solution to the problem of what has become rampant mass murder, mayhem and violence in our shopping malls and schools. To ban guns or restrict gun ownership (whether hand guns or automatic weapons) is only an attempt to avoid the actual problem of the human potential to manifest a depraved mental state … IE to fail to grow and mature with psychological and mental stability necessary within the context of a mass culture, and diverse concepts which must be considered and allowed equal and sometimes preferential recognition. Gun control, as is commonly proposed, is essentially equivalent to applying a Band-Aid when heart surgery is called for.

The thinking process of the human being can become skewed, perverted and generally out of kilter with the necessary requisites of living in a world with other humans. There may be many varying possibilities as to the “why” of this state, physical, purely mental (lack of learning to think rationally), or any combination thereof. But attempting to solve one aspect, found to be destructive to lives and property, without facing the deeper, real human problem, is only equivalent to keeping our heads buried in the sand and living in denial, essentially, there are things about ourselves we would rather not admit as being “out of kilter”.

Restricted Thinking

We are afraid of thinking. We, and this is a broad, generalized “we” I am describing. But “we”, and I also specify a religiously pre-disposed “we”, although they may deny it and claim “religion” has nothing to do with it. But “we” have inclined ourselves not to trust our own minds, and I am addressing the “Christian” community from which I had been so intimately involved. We exempt our own ability to critique and discern thoughts that continually flow through our working minds, fearing that as a mere human we are so morally and ethically corrupt, as a result of original sin inherited from Adam and Eve, that we are perpetually and in the minds of many only subject to the “Devil’s” devises or our own depravation.

Yet it was Jesus Christ himself who equated the mind of God, with his own, and by extension our minds.

We are afraid to consider that as Jesus Christ was in the world, and God through him, that God is in the world through us, and the same mind that was Christ’s is ours. IE when you think … God thinks. When you discern and discriminate, it is God that is in you.

Some of my non-Christian friends may (or may not) see the correlation which exists. This really is not a “Christian – non-Christian” issue. It is a human issue, and religion (or the word ‘God’) has nothing to do with it. I, and a few others I have associations with, from within the religious “Christian” community have our own (and varying) reservations concerning a great deal of sacred Christian verbiage. And I add, it is not only “Christian” verbiage, most other world religions share the same communication limitations. And I, and I’m sure others, have come to realize that secular scientific mind sets may also fall subject to the tendency to restrict language and thought.

Yet these all contain the seeds, and possibly the rooted structures, of the developing human condition, the ability to think, to discern, to discriminate, and to act as individual human beings, yet connected and manifesting a greater mind, some call “God”, some … something else … and others … nothing at all. Yet, it is all the same thing. As human beings, we, and this is more than a ‘religious’ we, it is an all-inclusive “we”, all share the potential of what is the evolution (sorry … a dirty word to some) of what is human … divine … God.

In Defense of the Straight White Man

I realize that in attempting to write on this subject that there is the potential of failing to include all the necessary data upon which the premise is based and thus alienating a large segment unnecessarily. But to do nothing rather perpetuates an allusion of agreement with a progressive political correctness, now, at least in my own perception, having evolved beyond the actual reality of fact. This is not to say that this evolution is not to be expected, and to a certain way of thinking not desirable, but that the pendulum of change has swung to its extreme and is beyond the level of acceptable tolerance, and possibly stuck, and in need of a prying loose and push back towards its natural center of gravity. This in no way is a justification of an imbalanced swing in the opposite direction, but some means of breaking the swing as the center is approached needs implemented, without losing the gains realized, and/or without reverting back to the opposite intolerable condition once accepted as the norm. This also in no way fails to recognize the progress still to be realized in so many areas of social concern, but only deals with the fact that in accepting an arbitrary pro-active status, in making gains for one segment, and in some regards, multiple segments of a given polity, a resultant disintegration of freedoms and status is incurred, by other, hitherto dominant segments, to a far less than natural or acceptable state of being.

It has now become necessary for me, as a human being, being what I am, for whatever reason, to defend my state of being. I am what I am. Whether another finds my attitudes acceptable, or politically correct, to suit their own ideas, is their concern and as they choose to make it, a problem. I, as they, must live life in one’s own reality of circumstance, without imposing undue restraint, hardship or sense of guilt upon any other for any reason whatsoever. “Any reason” being defined as religious, spiritual, ethnic, racial, sexual orientation, gender, political affiliation and/or other as may be construed.

I am a straight white man. If this is a problem to you … it is “your” problem. I am sexually “straight” … meaning … I am attracted to women. I take pleasure in their company and find a woman desirable. I can’t get my mind around what it is to be “gay” or homosexual. This does not make me “homophobic”, and I personally am convinced that the term “homophobic” is a relatively new word creation to meet the political needs of the LBGT community as they have finished strides in gaining acceptance within the larger culture. This is not in any way a justification of real atrocities and injustices endured by LBGT’s over years and centuries, but a recognition that the introduction of a concept as real to our values system does not justify another form of discrimination and intolerance.

I am “white” … I was born a Caucasian. My heritage is Western European. I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Many of the values originally instilled in me are those of the educational system dominant at the time, specifically, late fifties and the sixties, or socially liberal, though not necessarily compatible to those of my parents, at least, as best I could observe. This being the case, looking back and considering my own personal experience, my parents were not totally unjustified in their own partialities. Some may choose to state this more aggressively negatively, I must grant the benefit of the doubt and possibility that their own experience was instrumental in molding their own perceptions.

I am a man. No gender question here … I am what I am, and I like what I am. All the positive and perceived negative attributes that accompany the sex, I have. This does not mean that I am not concerned with becoming more sensitive to the needs and desires of women, and in particular the woman I live in relationship with… this is my concern, but, it is a concern to be worked on between myself and the lady I am in relation too. The rest of you can f*** off.

That sounds very “Straight White Man”, doesn’t it? … So be it.